Mike Pence: I didn’t know the gun was loaded

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There is an old song from the 40’s by the Andrew Sisters I believe, and it goes like this: “I didn’t know the gun was loaded, I didn’t know that my friend. I didn’t know the gun was loaded and I’ll never ever do it again.”

That’s kind of what is happening to the smug Mike Pence. He didn’t know that when he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law in Indiana that, that it was a loaded gun waiting to shoot him in the foot (or mouth as was the case with him) and then rise up and bite him in the backside. And now he is a deer totally caught in the headlights of an oncoming train that is on track to derail his presidential aspirations and trying to explain to the corporate world who got him elected that this law ain’t so bad, when they know it plainly is.

Oh to be in Boston where Mighty Casey only struck out and was booed for his failure. Governor Pence is now frozen in time trying to figure out what exactly went wrong when he woke up last Thursday and said I think today is a day like all days in which I will now become a player in the presidential sweepstakes when I sign this law. The heavens will open unto me and viola wow the world will be properly impressed with me. It was a day like all days, filled with events that alter and illuminate our times except Mike Pence wishes to high heaven (just like the law he signed now stinketh) that he had stayed in bed and called in sick.

He knows what his corporate buddies want him to do. He knows what the citizens of the state of Indiana want him to do (the pizza guy not withstanding). He knows what the right thing to do is, but he is in total shock that the world which was his oyster just Thursday last has suddenly rose up to smite him ala David smited the Giant in the Bible he so dearly claims to cherish and of which he claims came the impetus to sign this onerous bill into law.

He has to know that when even the Governor of Arkansas from a state which has a solid reputation (Bill and Hillary not withstanding of course) as the butt of many crude jokes and whose governor Orval Fabus was so non-repentant that Eisenhower called out the National Guard to explain to him where his duties lay in 1957. That when even the governor of Arkansas gets the message from the retail giant of all retail giants (and his own son) not to sign such a bill as did Pence in Indiana, then he has to know he is on the wrong side of history.

But what the hey? He is in good company is he not. Why just this past few days most of those who are already genuflecting to the right in the presidential sweepstakes sided with the Pence Man on this issue. However they too are starting to try to do that new Republican dance craze invented a couple of years back by the Mittster, you know the one, it’s called the presidential back step after two steps forward, pivot and back step. It’s driving the Republican wing-nut base crazy (well according to Howard Dean they were likely already crazy). Why now even that front-runner of a dynasty corporate suck up the money guy Jeb Bush is doing it.

Jeb came out early in the week before the firestorm had erupted and praised Pence to high heaven saying he agreed with the Pence Man. Except now he doesn’t. Jeb too has joined the craze and is now doing the presidential back step after two steps forward, pivot and back step. Oops there! I didn’t know that bill was loaded. I didn’t know that my friend. I didn’t know that bill was loaded and I’m never ever going to sign it again!